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DISCOURSE, 



DEI IVERI 1> BEFORE THE 



RHODE-ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



ON THE EVENING OF 



tiJcbncsban, Jaimarn 13, 18 r i7. 



***->*-. p --** 



BY HON. JOB D U R F E E , 

CHIEF JUSTICE OF RHODE-ISLAND. 



PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 



PROVIDENCE : 
CHARLES BURNETT, JR. 

1847. 



11 



Printed by Richardson & Filmer, 
142 1-2 Washington Street, 

BOSTON. 



DISCOURSE 



Gentlemen of the Historical Society : — 

In consequence of my compliance with the request of your com- 
mittee — a compliance, perhaps, unfortunate both for you and me — ■ 
it has become my duty to address you, and our fellow citizens 
generally, upon a purely Rhode-Island theme. I shall, accordingly, 
speak to you of that Idea of Government, which was actualized, for 
the first time in Christendom, here in this State, by those who 
described themselves as " a poor colony, consisting mostly of a birth 
and breeding of the Most High, formerly from the mother nation in 
the bishops' days, and latterly from the New-England over-zealous 
colonies." I shall speak to you of the origin of this idea — of the 
various forms which it took, in its progress toward its realization here, 
in minds of much diversity of character and creed; and of that 
"lively experiment," which it subsequently held forth, that " a most 
flourishing civil state may stand, and be best maintained, with a full 
liberty in religious concernments" — a liberty which implied an 
emancipation of Reason from the thraldom of arbitrary authority, and 
the full freedom of inquiry in all matters of speculative faith. 

To the founders of this State, and particularly to Roger Williams, 
belong the fame and the glory of having realized, for the first time, 
this grand idea, in a form of civil government ; but Ave should honor 
them at the expense of our common nature, should we say that they 
were the first to maintain that Christ's kingdom was not of this world, 
and that the State had no right to interfere between conscience and God. 
The idea must, undoubtedly, have had its historical origin in him who 
first endured persecution for conscience's sake. " Saul ! Said ! why 
persecutest thou me ?" is a voice, implying a denial of right, which 
comes with a sudden shining round about of light, not only from 



Heaven, but lias come, and shall ever come, from the depths of per- 
secuted humanity, through all time ; and, in proportion to the violence 
and spread of the persecution, has been, and shall be, the depth and 
extent of the cry. It is the protest of that all-present Reason, which 
is, at once, the master of the individual and the race, against the 
abuse made by the creature, of its own delegated authority. And 
that time never was, and never shall be, when humanity could, or 
can, recognize the right of any human power to punish for the ex- 
pression of a mere conscientious belief. 

By what fraudful craft or cunning, then, was it, that this power to 
punish in matters of conscience came to be established throughout all 
Christendom, and has been continued down, in some Countries, to the 
present day ? — and how happened it that the odious office of punishing 
heretics, and enforcing uniformity of opinion, fell, both in Roman 
Catholic and Protestant Countries, on the civil magistrates ? This 
question is fully answered by History. 

When men had been brought to believe that they had found 
a divine and infallible teacher in the Bishop of Rome, it was not 
difficult to induce them to think that whatever opinion they might 
entertain, which he thought proper to condemn as heretical, was, in 
truth, a sin, which they were bound to renounce, on the peril of their 
salvation ; and that then, on having renounced it, upon undergoing a 
voluntary penance, directed by some ecclesiastical authority, they 
might be assured of an absolution, and full restoration to the bosom 
of the church. Thus far it was believed that the spiritual power 
might proceed. But then, there were frequently those who were 
much more confident in the truth of their opinions, than in the infal- 
libility of the Pope, or their priestly advisers ; and such persons, on 
their opinions being adjudged heretical, were, after all suitable ad- 
monition, condemned as incorrigible heretics, and excommunicated. 

Yet this was not an extirpation of the heresy ; and the Roman 
Church held that she had a divine right to extirpate heresy ; and yet 
she also adopted the maxim, JScclesia abhorret a sa/tiguine — the Church 
aViiMi-s blood. TI13 holy Church then could not take the life of the 
heretic ; and, therefore, she contrived to shift off this odious office 
upon the secular authority, by imposing an oath upon the princes of 
Europe, generally, to sustain the Catholic faith, and to extirpate her- 
esy out of the land. It was thus that it fell to the lot of the kings 
of Europe, and their subordinates, to become the executioners of the 
Church of Rome. And when the Reformation was established over 



5 

a part of Europe, national churches took the place of the Roman 
Church, and laws were passed to enforce uniformity ; and thus, even 
in Protestant Countries, the ungrateful task of punishing non-con- 
formity and heresy fell on the civil magistrate. 

It was by such craft that the power to punish for matters of con- 
science came to be established, both in Roman Catholic and 
Protestant Countries, and that in both, the odious office of inflicting 
the punishment fell on the secular authorities. 

But long before the Reformation — long before the time of Luther 
• — there were great numbers in Europe, who had, themselves, ac- 
quired some knowledge of the Scriptures, and had, consequently, 
adopted opinions quite inconsistent with the doctrines and traditions 
of the Church of Rome ; and they proved to be opinions in which 
they had abundantly more confidence than in the infallibility of the 
Pope. Now, when these people came to be condemned as heretics, 
and consigned to the secular authorities, to undergo the sentence and 
punishment of death, can any one suppose that the appearance of 
the civil magistrate deceived them into the belief that they had indeed 
committed a crime ? Can any one doubt that they questioned his 
right — as they had questioned the infallibility of the Pope — to 
come in, with the sentence of death, between their consciences and 
their God, for a matter of faith in which their eternal hopes were 
grounded ? Indeed, their deaths were the strongest possible protest 
against the legitimacy of the power ; since no one can be supposed 
to adhere to an opinion, as right, lor which the magistrate may right- 
fully put him to death. The denial of the right of the civil power 
to interfere in matters of conscience, must, therefore, be coeval with 
the assumption of the authority. 

But men sometimes act on a truth which they feel, though they do 
not clearly express it in words ; and what says History on this point, 
in reference to such an assumption of authority ? I think that we 
may trace the denial of this right, more or less distinctly, in the doc- 
trines of the Waldenses or Albigeuses. These were names designa- 
ting persons of a great variety of opinions, on minor points, and by 
which dissenters from the Roman Church were generally distinguished, 
long before the appearance of Luther. The doctrines of these dis- 
senters, when first noticed, strongly resembled those of the primitive 
Christians. I cannot enumerate them ; but, like the first settlers of 
this State, they seem to have regarded ' ; Christ as king in his own 
kingdom;" and, by separating the church from the world, and by 



repudiating the Roman Church on account of its assumption of sec- 
ular authority, they manifestly denied the right of the civil magis- 
trate to interfere in the concerns of conscience. These people were 
early found in the valleys of Piedmont, and, at a later period, in the 
south of France. A crusade was, however, instituted against them 
by Innocent III., and they were driven from their homes with conflagra- 
tion and slaughter, into almost every European kingdom. Rome, thus 
undesignedly, scattered the seeds of the Reformation broadcast over 
Europe ; and with them, those principles and doctrines which ex- 
pressly separated the Church from the secular power. 

The doctrines of the Waldenses had been widely diffused at the 
dawn of the Reformation, and when Luther appeared, the number of 
dissenters from the Roman Church, who had adopted these, or doc- 
trines similar to these, were great in every Country in Europe ; but 
particularly in Germany. Europe was, in fact, now ripe for an in- 
surrection in favor of soul-liberty against soul-oppression, in every 
form, and, particularly, against that despotism which the Church as- 
serted, and which it maintained in the last resort, by the agency of 
the secular power, over the reason and the consciences of its subjects. 
And, indeed, the Reformation was nothing less than an effort made 
by this Reason for its own emancipation. 

But to break down its prison walls was not to build its own house — 
to emancipate itself A\*as not to secure and establish its own freedom ; 
and, therefore, in the very effort which it made for its emancipation, 
it necessarily kept this end in view — namely, the ultimate establish- 
ment of its own proper asylum, its own free home — so fortified, as 
to secure it against every attempt to enslave it. Let me endeavor to 
give this idea a more philosophical expression. This Reason exists in 
humanity, only in and through the individual mind. Now, nothing 
could secure and establish its freedom, but the realization of the indi- 
vidual mind Itself— free as its Creator had made it — ■ in a congenial, 
social mind, standing out, fully developed and expressed, in corres- 
pondently free political institutions. This was the idea — this was 
the then deeply involved conception, to which the general mind of 
Protestant Europe gravitated, unconsciously, but of its own law, as 
to a common centre. I say unconsciously ; but it had its vague and 
indeterminate aspirations and hopes. It ever had its object dimly 
and indistinctly before it, though receding at every approach. It 
was this idea which, for generations, shook Europe to its centre — it 
was this idea which, when the spiritual domination of Rome was 



overthrown, and Protestant Europe stood forth in renovated institu- 
tions, still haunted the minds of our English ancestry, as a great 
conception, which had not been, but might yet be, realized — it was 
this Ilea which brought them " from the mother nation in the bishops' 
days," and finally, " from the New England over-zealous colonies," 
here, to the forest-shaded banks of the Mooshausic, where they, 
at last, fully realized it, in the social order and government of a 
State. 

It may be not inappropriate to trace this idea, through the several 
stages of its progress, to its realization here. It will, at least, give 
us confidence in that which may follow, and will, I flatter myself, 
sheAV that we are not dealing with a phantom of the imagination, but 
with a sober historical reality. 

When the several Protestant governments of Europe had thrown 
oft* the spiritual dominion of the Pope, great was the expectation of 
their subjects, that the individual mind would be no longer held in 
spiritual bondage. This expectation, however, was destined to a 
considerable disappointment. These governments had indeed thrown 
off the dominion of the Pope, but they substituted, in the place of 
it, a dominion of their own. Each established its own national 
church, Lutheran, Calvinistic, or Episcopal. The king, or head of 
the nation, became the head of the established order ; and laws 
were enacted, or ordinances promulgated, to enforce uniformity, and 
punish heretics. It is evident, however, that here had been a pro- 
gress toward the realization of the idea which had caused the 
Reformation. In Continental Europe, the Lutheran and the Calvin- 
ist, under their respective church and state governments, were in the 
full enjoyment of that soul-liberty which would have been denied to 
them by the Pope. Each of their minds found its place in a conge- 
nial social mind — their idea of soul-liberty was realized. But how 
was it with those who could not conform to the Established Church ? 
They were obnoxious to the laws — they were disfranchised, or pun- 
ished for non-conformit} 7 , or heresy. That soul-liberty, for which 
they had struggled and suffered so much, during the trials of the 
Reformation, had not been realized ; and they were, in respect to 
conscience, out of legal protection, and objects of persecution. And 
this was particularly the case in England — the father-land of our 
ancestors. The Reformation had there been commenced, not by the 
people — not by a Luther and his associates — but by the govern- 
ment itself, and for the interest and the purposes of the government. 



It was commenced in the reign of Henry VIII : and, after a saagta. 
nary Btruggle during the reign of Philip and Mary, was at length 
recognized as fully established, in the reign of Elizabeth. 

This event terminated, forever, the spiritual dominion of the Pope 
in England, and established Episcopacy as an integral part of the 
monarchy, with the sovereign at its head. Here, too, was a progress 
toward the realization of the great idea, but it was a progress made 
only for the benefit of the Episcopalian ; and, indeed, for his benefit, 
only whilst he continued to adhere to that particular faith. The 
moment that reason or conscience carried him beyond the prescribed 
limits, he fell under the ban of Church and State, as a non-conformist 
or heretic. Nor did he find himself alone. Many there were, who, 
from the first establishment of the Church of England, thought that 
the Reformation had not been earned to a sufficient extent ; and that 
the soul-liberty, for which they had endured so much, had not been 
realized. They were comprehended under the general name of 
Non-conformists, and consisted of those called Brownists, Puritans, 
Congregationalists, Independents, and so forth. Neither of these 
denominations felt that their idea of religious liberty had been real- 
ized in an Episcopal Church and State. On the contrary, they felt 
that how much soever of liberty there might be for the Episcopalian, 
there was but little for them. A part of those called Puritans, 
formed themselves into associations, or churches, crossed the Atlantic, 
and established themselves at Plymouth, Salem, and Boston, and 
became the first settlers of New-England. 

They sought these shores, to establish here, far from English bish- 
ops and their tyranny over reason and conscience, religious liberty 
for themselves and their posterity. This, at first, certainly seems to 
promise the final accomplishment of the great object of the Reform- 
ation — even the entire emancipation of the individual mind from 
spiritual thraldom, and the establishment of its freedom in the bosom 
of a congenial community. But, in fact, it proved to be only another 
step toward. that end. What they meant by religious freedom, was 
not the freedom of the individual mind from the domination of the 
spiritual order, but merely the freedom of their particular church ; 
and just as the English government had thrown off the tyranny of 
the Pope, to establish the tyranny of the bishops, they threw off the 
tyranny of the bishops, to establish the tyranny of the brethren. 
But still, a small community, under the rule of brethren, is nearer 
to an individual, than a nation, under a monarch ; and the establish- 



9 

ment, here^ of these churches or religious associations, even under 
their ecclesiastical and civil forms, proved to be a great approxima- 
tion toward the realization of the full freedom of the individual mind in 
congenial social institutions. True, they established nothing but the 
liberty of Church and State Corporations, and of their respective 
members ; but it was easier to break from the restraints imposed by 
a petty community, than from those imposed by the government and 
people of England ; especially when the daring adventurer had the 
wilderness before him. And the form, which these religious associa- 
tions took, was particularly exposed to the liability of provoking dis- 
affection, even among themselves. 

Their Church and State Governments were essentially the same 
institution, under different names. The spiritual power was brought 
down to earth, and into all the relations of private and public life. 
It appeared in their laws — their judicial proceedings — in the 
administration of the government, and in all the movements of the 
State. Nothing of importance was done without the advice of the 
minister and ruling elders ; and we may well suppose that, under 
such a form of government, politics and religion were identical. It 
was designed to make men religious according to law ; and there 
could not be two parties in the State, without there being also two 
parties in the Church ; and to question the authority of either, was 
to provoke the resentment of both. The brethren were, indeed, free 
as long as they continued brethren ; but Reason was, at that time, 
moving on to its emancipation, and it could dilate on nothing which 
did not bring it directly or indirectly into conflict with the Church. 
It, therefore, soon happened, and particularly in Massachusetts, that 
numbers of the brethren, of diverse minds in matters of faith, lost 
their place in the Church — were cast out, and exposed to the penal 
inflictions of the civil authorities. 

Among the earliest, if not the very earliest, of these, was Roger 
Williams, the Founder of this State. He had sought New England 
(A. D. 1681,) in the expectation that he might here enjoy that 
religious liberty which was denied him in the mother country. He 
was a minister of the gospel. He at first preached in Plymouth, 
and afterwards became a minister of the church at Salem. He freely 
expressed his opinion on various subjects. He affirmed that the king's 
patent could not, of itself, give a just title to the lands of the Indians. 
He maintained that the civil magistrate had no right to interfere 
in matters of conscience, and to punish for heresy or apostacy. He 
2 



10 

contended that " the people were the origin of all free power in 
government," but that " they were not invested by Christ Jesus with 
power to rule in his Church " — that they could give no such power 
to the magistrate, and that to " introduce the civil sword " into this 
spiritual kingdom, was " to confound heaven and earth, and lay all 
upon heaps of confusion." In effect, he called upon the Church to 
come out from the magistracy, and the magistracy to come out from 
the Church ; and demanded that each should act within its appropri- 
ate sphere, and by its appropriate means. It was then, for the first 
time, that the startling thought of a complete separation of Church 
and State, was uttered on these Western shores ; and it was then, 
also for the first time, that the individual mind, free in the sovereign 
attributes of Reason, stood forth before the Massachusetts authorities, 
and boldly claimed its emancipation, in the realization of its own 
true idea of government. 

Such' a mind was manifestly* too large for the sphere of a Church 
and State combination. It had already broken from its bondage, 
and now stood out, independent, individual, and alone. Roger 
Williams was necessarily banished by the Massachusetts authorities. 
He was sentenced to depart from their jurisdiction within six weeks. 
But he went about, " to draw others to his opinion," and he proposed 
" to erect a plantation about the Narragansett bay." The rumor of 
this reached the ears of the magistracy ; and, to defeat his intent, 
which had for them a most alarming significance, they proposed to 
send him to England, by a ship then lying in the harbor of Boston. 
He eluded their quest — plunged into the forest wilderness — and, 
after spending the winter among its savage but hospitable inhabitants, 
attempted to form a plantation at Seekonk ; but, defeated in this, 
came, at last, into the valley of the Mooshausic, and here, with a 
small number of associates, of like aspirations, realized that idea of 
government, in its first form, which had so long captivated, but still 
evaded, the pursuit of nations and men. 

We have thus traced this idea of government, from the first indis- 
tinct expressions of itself in the doctrines of the Waldenses, through 
the struggles of that revolution known as the Protestant Reformation ; 
we have next noticed the imperfect realizations of itself, in the Church 
and State governments of Europe ; we have then seen it cross the 
Atlantic, in the form of small religious associations, to be again 
reproduced, imperfectly, in a combination of ecclesiastical and civil 
institutions ; but we have now seen it, impersonated in the individual 



11 

man, breaking from these restraints, and going forth into the wilder- 
ness, there to establish itself in an infant community, as the last 
result of centuries of effort. 

We start, then, with this important fact, well worthy of being 
forever fixed in every Rhode-Island mind ; namely : that it was here 
that the great idea, which constituted the very soul of that religious 
movement which so long agitated all Europe, first took an organic 
form in a civil community, and expressed itself in a social compact. 

Let us for a moment attend to the words of that compact — let 
us hearken to this, its first free expression of itself. We ought not 
to expect it to announce itself in the clear, strong tones of manhood ; 
for it can speak, at first, only through an infant organization — it 
will only make known its advent into the material world, by lisping 
its earliest wants ; but then, it will lisp them so clearly and distinctly, 
as to leave nothing to be misunderstood. • 

" We, whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit the town 
of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves, in active and passive 
obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for 
public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of 
the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together 
into a town-fellowship, and such as they shall admit unto them, only 
in civil things." 

Here the great idea resolves itself, manifestly, into two elements 
■ — Liberty and Law ; the one, necessarily implied ; the other, clearly 
and determinate^ expressed. Liberty, Soul-Liberty, they take from 
no earthly power, or being. It is the gift of God, in that Reason 
which is within them, as His law, and which human authority can 
neither rightfully enlarge nor diminish. In this, its exalted and 
exalting element, the Reason is left to deal freely, and according to 
its own method, with the Divine, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Abso- 
lute, and all that pertains thereto, without let or hinderance. But 
in the region beneath, in this meum and tuum world, the proper 
sphere of the common-sense understanding of mankind — where man 
may jostle man, where each may claim to occupy the same space, 
to possess the same thing, to do the same act — they each joyfully 
accept law at the hands of their fellows, cautiously requiring that it 
should be only in these, their civil things. 

We have now this idea, with its two elements, as it first manifested 
itself in the infant community of Providence ; but it was destined to 
extend thence, and organize itself in several towns. And, indeed, 



12 

fully to try its capacity for government, it should take form in a 
population of a great variety of religious creed, and exhibit itself in 
a diversity of human elements — elements antagonistic al, and, in 
some respects, even irreconcileable. For if they be perfectly homo- 
geneous, such as Church and State require, they cannot give this 
idea the slightest developement. Now, in point of fact, what were 
these elements ? 

Why, they were made up of men and women, of a diversity of 
creeds, who, flying from the soul-oppression of the governments of 
Europe, and the neighboring Colonies, came hither to enjoy soul-lib- 
ertv. Shortly following the settlement of Providence, the town of 
Portsmouth and the town of Newport were formed, and the settle- 
ment of Warwick was commenced ; each with the same object — 
namely, the enjoyment of soul-liberty, in security from the soul-op- 
pressors of Massachusetts, and other Colonies. In proof of this 
diversity of faith, we might cite Dr. Mather, if he could be consid- 
ered trustworthy authority for that purpose. He represents us to 
be, at this period, " a colluvies of Antmomians, Familists, Anabap- 
tists, Anti-Sabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, and Ranters ; 
everything in the world but Roman Catholics and real Christians ; so 
that if a man," continues he, " had lost his religion, he might find it 
at this general muster of opinionists." Well, the Rhode-Island idea 
may readily accept all the diversity which the Doctor has given it ; 
for it knows how to organize it, and subject it to order and law. But 
we must lay the venerable Doctor aside. He lovingly deals too 
freely with unrealities and monstrosities of all sorts, to be reliable 
authority in spiritualities of any kind. Of what, then, did this 
diversity mainly consist ? 

Why, here were the plain matter-of-fact Baptists, ever the unyield- 
ing lovers of religious freedom — ever the repellers of State inter- 
ference in the concerns of conscience — tracing their genealogy 
back through the Waldenses, even to the great original Baptist, John. 
Here, chiefly at Newport, were the familistical Antinomians, so called 
by their persecutors — the highly-gifted Ann Hutchinson for a season 
at their head, confiding in the revelations of the indwelling spirit, 
and a covenant of free grace. Here, too, chiefly at Warwick, was 
the mystical Gortonist, dimly symbolizing his doctrines in cloudy 
allegory. Here also was the Fifth Monarchy man, preparing for 
the Second Advent, and the New Reign on earth. Here, every- 
where, was the Quaker — a quiet, demure, peace-loving non-resistant, 



13 

in the world of the flesh ; but who, on taking fire in the silence of 
his meditations, became indomitable in the world of spirit, and gave 
the unresisting flesh, freely, to bondage and death, in vindication of 
his faith. And here, also, it is true, were free-thinkers of all sorts ; 
some who had opinions, and some who had none. Surely, even 
before other denominations had established themselves within our 
borders, here were elements of diversity, all-sufficient to try the 
capacity of the Rhode-Island Idea of Government. 

Amid such variety of mind, there was little danger that men 
would melt down into one homogeneous mass — a result to which a 
Church and State combination ever tends — and lose their moral and 
intellectual individualities. Such variety of mind could not fail to 
be active, and to beget action, and to promote and preserve original 
distinctiveness of character, in all diversity. And such, we find, 
was the fact. I will endeavor to delineate the characters of a few 
of the leading minds of the Colony, at this time, that we may form 
some faint conception of the originality and diversity of character, 
which marked those who constituted the undistinguished numbers 
that they led. 

Roger Williams and William Harris were the heads of two distinct 
political parties in Providence. Two marked and prominent traits of 
intellect, gave a strong and decisive outline to the character of 
Williams ; namely — originality of conception in design, and unyield- 
ing perseverance in execution. These, every noted fact of his life 
clearly indicate and prove. He could assert the right of the natives 
to the soil that contained the bones of their ancestors, and maintain 
it against the patent of England's sovereign, though he roused the 
wrath of a whole community against him. He could conceive a new 
idea of government, and contend for it, against Church and Court, 
with the penalty of banishment or death before him. He could be 
" sorely tossed for fourteen weeks, in a bitter cold winter season, not 
knowing what bed or bread did mean," rather than renounce this 
new idea. He could seat himself down amid savage nations — study 
their language, soothe their ferocious dispositions, make them his 
friends — that he might actualize, in humanity, his yet untried con- 
ception. He could write tracts in defence of this peculiar concep- 
tion, whilst engaged at the hoe and oar, toiling for bread — whilst 
attending Parliament, in a variety of rooms and places — and some- 
times in the field, and in the midst of travel. He could, at the age 



14 

of three-score and ten, row thirty miles, in one day, that he might 
engage in a three days' discussion with George Fox, on some knotty 
points of divinity. He was, indeed, a man of the most unyielding 
firmness in support of his opinions ; but no one can say that he ever 
suffered his firmness to degenerate into obstinacy. Whatever his doc- 
trines were, he was sure to practice upon them to the utmost extent ; 
and if further reflection, or that practice, showed that they were erro- 
neous, he cheerfully abandoned them. He was, indeed, a remarkable 
man, and one of the most original characters of an age distinguished 
for originality of conception. 

Harris was a man of ardent temperament, of strong intellectual 
powers — bold, energetic, ever active, and ever persevering to the 
end, in whatever cause he undertook. Nature seems to have supplied 
the deficiencies of his early education. Without having made the 
Law a study, he became the advocate of the Pawtuxet purchasers, in 
their suit against the towns of Providence, Warwick, and others ; 
and of Connecticut, in her claims against Rhode-Island, to the Nar- 
ragansett country. He was rather fitted for the practical, than the 
speculative — for the sphere of the senses, than for the sphere of the 
ideal. He could not, like Williams, contemplate both spheres, at 
the same time, in their mutual relations ; and the consequence was, 
that the moment he passed into the ideal, he became a radical, and 
was brought, at once, into violent collision with Williams. Basing 
his theories, for a time, at least, on conscience, he contended that 
any person who could, conscientiously, say that he ought not to sub- 
mit to any human authority, should be exempt from all law. He 
asserted and defended this position in a book ; yet he was by no 
means a non-resistant himself. When he obtained political power, 
he wielded it with such effect against his adversaries, that they called 
him the Five-brand. Like most men of genius, or eccentricity, who 
lead an active life, he has a touch of romance in his history. He 
had, several times, in the prosecution of the complicated controver- 
sies in which he was engaged, crossed the Atlantic to the Mother 
Country. Upon the eve of embarking on his last voyage, as if seized 
with a presentiment of his destiny, he made his will, and had it 
forthwith proved before the proper authorities. He then left port 
for England ; but, on the voyage, he was taken by a Barbary cor- 
sair, carried into Algiers, was there sold into bondage, and detained 
as a slave, for one year. He was then ransomed, and after travel- 



15 

ling through Spain and France, he reached London, and there died, 
shortly after his arrival. The mind of Harris was strong ; that of 
Williams, comprehensive. 

Samuel Gorton, the chief man of the settlement of Shawomet, 
(or Warwick,) was a person of the most distinctive originality of 
character. He was a man of deep, strong feelings — keenly alive to 
every injury, though inflicted on the humblest of God's creatures. 
He was a great lover of soul-liberty, and hater of all shams. He 
was a learned man, self-educated, studious, contemplative ; a pro- 
found thinker ; who, in his spiritual meditations amid ancient War- 
wick's primeval groves, wandered off into infinite and eternal realities, 
forgetful of earth and all earthly relations. He did indeed clothe 
his thoughts, at times, in clouds ; but then, it was because they 
were too large for any other garment. No one, who shall rivet his 
attention upon them, shall fail to catch some glimpse of giant limb 
and joint, and have some, dim conception of the colossal form that 
is enshrouded within the mystic envelopement. Yet, in common 
life, no one was more plain, simple, and unaffected, than Gorton. 
That he was courteous, affable, and eloquent, his very enemies ad- 
mit ; and even grievously complain of his seducing language. He 
was a man of courage ; and when roused to anger, no hero of the 
Iliad ever breathed language more impassioned or effective. — 
Nothing is more probable than that such a man, in the presence of 
the Massachusetts magistracy, felt his superiority, and moved and 
spoke, with somewhat more freedom than they deemed suited to 
their dignity. Far more sinned against than sinning, he bore ad- 
versity with heroic fortitude, and, if he did not conquer, he yet 
finally baffled every effort of his enemies. 

William Coddington and John Clarke, two of the leading characters 
of the island towns, were both men of well-balanced and well educated 
minds ; less remarkable for originality of thought, than for clear un- 
derstanding, and practical judgments. They constituted a very for- 
tunate equipoise against the eccentricity and enthusiasm of such 
original geniuses as Williams and Gorton. The former furnished the 
sails, and the latter the ballast, of the ship. Each was necessary to 
the other, and both were indisgensable to the whole. 

Coddington, before he left Boston, was one of the chief men of 
Massachusetts. He was an assistant, re-chosen several times — 
treasurer of the Colony, and a principal merchant in Boston. He was 
grieved at the proceedings of the Court, against Mr. Wheelwright 



16 

and others ; and came to befriend and assist them, on their removal 
to Newport. He was a common-sense, sober, staid, worthy man. 
The political difficulty into which he was brought, is as likely to have 
sprung from his virtues, as his failings. He had in him a little too 
much of the future for Massachusetts, and a little too much of the 
past for Rhode-Island, as she then was. He died Governor of Rhode- 
Island, and a member of the Friends' Society. 

Clarke was a man of more active and effective zeal in the cause 
of civil and religious liberty, than Coddington ; and was highly com- 
petent to have charge of its interests in the highest places. He 
was mainly instrumental in procuring the charter of 1663. Though 
originally a physician in London, he became Pastor of the First 
Baptist Church in Newport. He was a man of learning, the author 
of some tracts touching the persecutions in New-England, and left, 
in manuscript, a Concordance and Lexicon — "the fruit of several 
years' labor." To do full justice to Portsmouth and Newport, it 
should be added, that their first settlers were, generally, men of 
more property, and better education, than those of Providence. 
But— 

* * * Fuimus Troe?, fuit Ilium * * * 
***** Omnia Jupiter Argos 
Transtulit. 

Such were the leading minds of this State, whilst yet in its rudi- 
mental condition, awaiting a transition to a more perfect form. And 
I might now say something of the impress which these characters, 
and their like, have, manifestly, left on their posterity ; but this 
would be foreign to my present purpose. I have described them as 
they exist in the conceptions given by History, that we may have 
some notion of the diversity and originality of the contemporary 
moral and intellectual forces which were brought into action by them. 

Now let us recollect that all this diversity and distinctive origin- 
ality of character, were to be found within four little neighborhoods, 
consisting at first of a few families, and, as late as 1663 — the utmost 
range of my present view — of not more than three or four thousand 
souls. Upon minds thus diverse, original, enthusiastic, active, and, 
in some respects, conflicting — each bent upon the enjoyment of the 
most perfect soul-liberty, consistent with a well-ordered community — 
the Rhode-Island idea, subsisting the same in each and all, took form 
— stood out in a constituted people — lived, breathed, and thought, 
in an organization of its own. 



17 

When you look for the Constitution of this State, in its essential 
form., go not to compacts subscribed by men ; go not to charters 
granted by kings ; go not to Constitutions given by majorities — they 
are but faint and imperfect expressions of the great reality ; but go 
to this grand idea, coming down from the distant past — struggling 
through the blood and turmoil of warring nations — passing through 
the fiery ordeal of Church and State persecution ; and here, at last, 
find it — standing out — realized — incarnated — in its own appro- 
priated and peculiar people. 

This idea, thus realized, consisted, as already stated, of two ele- 
ments, — Liberty and Law — the pure Reason above, and the common- 
sense understanding beneath. There is no necessary conflict between 
these two elements ; on the contrary, each is necessary to the proper 
existence of the other. Yet we shall find, as Ave follow the internal 
developement of this idea, that these two elements frequently encoun- 
ter, and sharply contend for victory. The idea being thus given, 
every new occasion will call for a new application, which will infalli- 
bly bring these elements into action. And now let us follow it in 
some of its manifestations here, in Providence — then a small village 
on the banks of the Mooshausic. 

Would that it were in my power, by a mesmeric wave of the hand, 
to bring Providence before you, as she then was. You would see 
the natural Mooshausic, freely rolling beneath his primeval shades, 
unobstructed by bridge, uninfringed by wharf or made land, still 
laving his native marge — here expanding in the ample cove - — ■ there 
winding and glimmering round point and headland, and, joyous in 
his native freedom, passing onward till lost in the bosom of the 
broad-spreading Narragansett. You would see, beneath the forest 
of branching oak and beech, interspersed with dark-arching cedars 
and tapering pines, infant Providence, in a village of scattered log 
huts. You would see each little hut overlooking its own natural 
lawn, by the side of fountain or stream, Avith its first rude enclosure 
of waving corn ; you Avould see the staunch-limbed draught-horse, 
grazing the forest-glade ; you Avould hear the tinkling of the cow-bell 
in the thicket, and the bleating of flocks on the hill. You Avould 
see the plain, homespun human inhabitants — not such as tailors and 
milliners make, but such as God made ; real men and Avomen, with 
the bloom of health on their cheeks, and its elasticity and vigor in 
every joint and limb. Somewhat of an Arcadian scene this — yet it 
is not, in reality, precisely Avhat it seems. A neAv occasion has arisen 
3 



18 

in this little community, which requires a new application of their 
idea of the State. 

Oddly enough — or rather, naturally enough — this occasion has 
arisen out of the most interesting of domestic relations. Joshua 
Verin, that rude, old-fashioned man, with his Church and State idea 
still clinging to him, has been putting restraints upon the conscience 
of his wife. Yes, she is desirous of attending Mr. Williams' meet- 
ings, " as often as called for," and hearing his Anabaptistical dis- 
courses ; and her husband has said, "she shall not;" and the 
consequence is that the whole community is in a buzz — the fundament- 
al idea has been infringed. A town meeting is called on the subject, 
and a warm debate ensues ; for Verin has his friends, as well as his 
wife. The proposition is, that "Joshua Verin, for breach of cove- 
nant in restraining liberty of conscience, be withheld the liberty of 
voting, till he declare the contrary." " And there stood up," says 
Winthrop, " one Arnold, a witty man of their company, and with- 
stood it, telling them that when he consented to that covenant, he 
never intended it should extend to the breach of any ordinance of 
God, such as the subjection of wives to their husbands, and so forth ; 
and gave divers solid reasons against it. Then one Greene, he 
replied, that if they should restrain their wives, all the women 
in the country would cry out upon them. Arnold answered 
thus : ' Did you pretend to leave the Massachusetts, because you 
would not offend God to please men, and would you now break 
an ordinance and commandment of God, to please toomenV " 
Winthrop, naturally enough, gives the best of the argument to 
Arnold ; but he may not be fairly entitled to it. 

It is the earliest record of a struggle in this State, between new- 
born Liberty and ancient Law. If the facts were, that Mrs. Verin, 
after faithfully discharging all her duties as a wife and mother, felt 
herself in conscience bound to attend Mr. Williams' meetings, and 
her husband restrained her, it was just such a restraint on conscience 
as was inconsistent with the new idea of government ; and the ques- 
tion, on this supposition, was correctly decided. Liberty won the 
victory ; and Joshua Verin, for a breach of covenant in restraining 
liberty of conscience, was properly withheld the liberty of voting, 
till he declared the contrary. 

But there was another occasion for the application of the funda- 
mental idea, not more important in principle, but far more serious in 
its consequences. It arose from an attempt of Liberty to come down 



10 

upon earth, and realize herself entire, to the complete overthrow and 
destruction of all law and order. It was an idea given by pure 
Reason — an idea subsisting only by relation to the Universal, the 
Absolute, the Infinite, the Divine — that sought to come down into 
a special form of humanity, and supplant the plain common-sense 
understanding of mankind. It was one of those ideas which propose 
to navigate the ship by plain sailing, over an ocean vexed with winds, 
and waves, and varying currents, and perilous with islands, and banks, 
and ledges, and rocks — where nothing but traverse sailing, aided 
by the chart, will do. It has been the fortune of Rhode-Island, from 
her infancy to the present hour, to balance herself between Liberty 
and Law — to wage war, as occasion might require, with this class 
of ideas, and keep them within their appropriate bounds. And 
before certain other States — some of them not fairly out of their 
cradles — undertake to give her lessons of duty in relation to such 
ideas, let me tell them that they must have something of Rhode- 
Island's experience, and have, like her, been self-governed for 
centuries. 

William Harris, as already stated, published a book, and sent it to 
the several towns of the Colony, in which he maintained, that he 
who could say in his conscience that he could not submit to any 
human legislation, ought to be exempt from the operation of all 
human laws. You will perceive that he bases this proposition upon 
the liberty-element of the fundamental idea — that he would trans- 
mute the relation which subsists between the secret conscience and 
God, and with which no human law should interfere, into the rela- 
tions between man and man, citizen and State, and thereby dissolve 
the government, establish the sovereignty of each individual, and 
terminate all law. 

We may well suppose that, on such a proposition being announced 
— and announced in such a maimer — by a man so considerable as 
Harris, the excitement in this little community was violent. The 
very existence of the fundamental idea was threatened, and the art 
with which the popular element was supported by free quotations 
from Scripture, excited no little alarm. Williams harnessed himself 
for the contest, and came forth in vindication of his idea. He made 
the distinction between the absolute liberty of conscience, and the 
civil government, clear, by a happy illustration. The crew of a ship 
might consist of all varieties of creed, and each individual worship 
God in his own way ; but when called upon to do their duty in naviga- 



20 

ting the ship, they must all obey the commands of the master. Against 
his orders, given to that end, they must setup no pretence of soul-lib- 
erty — no affected conscientious scruples — do their duty they must, 
each as one of the crew enlisted for the voyage, on peril of suffering 
the penalties of mutiny. And he accordingly indicted Harris for 
high treason. The indictment, however, was not prosecuted to 
effect — it terminated as it should have. Harris gave bonds for his 
good behavior, and a'copy of the charge and accompanying papers were 
sent to England ; thus ended the indictment, but not the conse- 
quences of the discussion. 

The principles of the government had, indeed, become better 
understood ; the limits of liberty, and the limits of authority, were 
doubtless more clearly fixed ; but the feuds which the agitation 
generated, did not stop here. Two parties were created by the 
controversy ; and, passing from questions of Liberty, to questions of 
Law, touching the limits of the town, they used against each other 
whatever weapons they were able to command, and carried on their 
hostilities for twelve or thirteen years. The town was disorganized 
in the strife. Two sets of municipal officers were chosen, and two 
sets of deputies were sent to the General Assembly ; nor were the 
dissentions composed, until the Legislature, by a special act, appointed 
Commissioners, whose ultimate determinations appear to have restored 
the old order of things. 

Such were the developements which the new idea of government 
received, here in this town, in the infancy of the State. The first, 
bearing on the relations of domestic life, and the second on the rela- 
tions of citizens to each other and to the State. But we are now to 
consider it in its applications to municipalities — to distinct corpora- 
tions ; and to show how it developed itself, when it gave law to a num- 
ber of independent communities and resolved them into unity and 
organic form. 

A free and absolute charter of civil incorporation, for the inhabit- 
ants of the towns of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, to be 
known by the name of the Incorporation of Providence Plantations 
in Narragansett Bay in New-England, was brought by Roger Wil- 
liams from England, in 1644 ; but, owing to the claims of Massa- 
chusetts, or other obstruction, it did not go into effect until May, 
1('»47. This charter granted the most ample power to the said 
inhabitants, and such others as should afterwards inhabit within the 
prescribed limits, to establish such a form of civil government as, by 



21 

voluntary consent of all or the greater part of thern, should be found 
most suitable in their estates and conditions ; and, to that end, to 
make and ordain such civil laws and constitutions, and to inflict such 
punishments upon transgressors, and for the execution thereof so to 
place and displace officers of justice, as they or the greater part should 
by free consent agree unto. I omit the proviso, as of no account here. 
Under this charter guarantee of the Mother Country, the Rhode- 
Island idea of government Avas called upon to organize itself with 
the most perfect freedom, on the four distinct and independent muni- 
cipalities — Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, and Warwick. And 
in what manner do you suppose it did develope itself on these distinct 
and independent bodies politic ? Why, it developed itself in a man- 
ner the most natural, if not the most effective. It organized for 
itself a general form of government, which, if not precisely, was at 
least strongly, analogous to the organization of these United States, 
under their present Constitution. I will give you a brief abstract of 
their form of government, from the "Annals of Providence " — a 
magazine of facts, from which I take the liberty to draw copiously. 

The whole people, forming the General Assembly, met annually, 
for the enactment of general laios, and for the choice of general 
officers ; as President — an assistant from each town, nominated by 
the town — General Recorder, &c. A general code of laws, which 
concerned all men, was first approved by the towns, (as the States 
adopted the Constitution, and still adopt amendments,) but before it 
could go into effect, it was ratified by the General Assembly of the 
whole people. All legislative power was ultimately in the whole 
people, in General Assembly convened. Towns might propose laws, 
(as States amendments to the Constitution,) and the approval of a 
General Court of Commissioners might give them a temporary force ; 
but it was only the action of the General Assembly, (the General 
Government) which could make them general and permanent for all 
persons within the Cobny. But the towns had their local laws, (as 
the States have theirs,) which could not be enforced boyond their 
own limits ; and they had their town courts, (as the States have 
State Courts,) which had exclusive original jurisdiction over all 
causes, between their own citizens: The President and Assistants 
composed the general court of trials. They had jurisdiction over- 
all aggravated offences, and in such matters as should be referred to 
them by the town courts as too weighty for themselves to determine ; 
and also of all disputes between different towns, and between citizens, 



22 

of different toivns and strangers. " It is apparent," continues the 
same authority, " that the towns, as such, parted with no more power 
than they deemed the exigency of the case required. They can 
scarcely be said to have consented to anything more than a confed- 
eration of independent governments. If they intended a complete 
consolidation of powers, their acts fall far short of it. He who care- 
fully peruses the whole proceedings of the original assembly of towns 
of this infant Colony, will be struck with the resemblance there is 
between those towns, after that assembly had closed its labors, and 
the several States now composing the United States of America, 
under the Constitution." Yes, it is true that at this early period, 
whilst Rhode-Island was yet in her rudiments, this, her Idea of 
Liberty and Law, took form in an organization that already foreshad- 
owed the Constitution of this Union, and foreshowed its practicabil- 
ity. 

But do I say that the framers of the Constitution of the United 
States found their model here ? No ; but this I do say, that when 
the several States of the old confederation, following our lead, had 
gradually abandoned their Church and State combinations, and 
adopted the Rhode-Island idea of government, that then, this idea 
thus given by her, did but repeat itself in its most natural and effec- 
tive form in the Constitution of the United States, and the organiza- 
tion of the Union. Conceive, if you can, I will not say the practi- 
cability, but the possibility, of the Constitution of this Union, without 
that idea of government, which Rhode-Island was the first to adopt, 
and, against fearful odds, through long years of trial and tribulation 
to maintain. Conceive, if you can, thirteen distinct and diverse 
Church and State governments taking form under one common 
Church and State government — and if you cannot, then do not 
deem that assertion extravagant, which declares that without Rhode- 
Island's idea of Liberty and Law, this union would have been impos- 
sible. True, others might have adopted it had there been no Rhode- 
Island. So others might have given us the theory of gravitation, 
had there been no Newton. Yet the fame and the glory of the dis- 
covery, nevertheless belongs to him. Let Rhode-Island claim her 
own laurels, and we shall see how many brows will be stripped na- 
ked, and how many boastful tongues will be silenced. 

But let us follow this idea in its further developements. I can 
speak only of the most prominent ; and am under the necessity of 
speaking of them with all possible brevity. 



The government went on under the charter, — all the towns par- 
ticipating — until 1651, when a commission was granted to Codding- 
ton, by the Council of State, to govern the Island with a council cho- 
sen by the people, and approved by himself. This is properly called 
an obstruction — and an obstruction to the free developement of Rhode- 
Island's peculiar idea of government, it certainly was. She loved 
liberty, and she loved law and legal authority ; but here was too 
much of the latter — it trenched too far on the liberty element.. 
The main-land towns recoiled from it — fell back upon themselves, and, 
in the midst of intestine broils and dissensions, often fomented by 
Massachusetts, continued their government under the charter. The 
Island towns submitted ; but submitted with deep murmurs and invin- 
cible repugnance. Roger Williams and John Clarke were immedi- 
ately despatched by the several towns of the Colony, as their agents 
to England ; and they soon procured a revocation of Mr. Coddington's 
commission ; who, without reluctance, laid down the extraordinary 
authority conferred upon him. After some delay, owing to a misun- 
derstanding between the Island and main-land towns, all returned to 
the old form of government, which continued until the adoption of 
the charter of 1663. 

In the meantime, Rhode-Island, (" the Providence Plantations,") 
notwithstanding all untoward circumstances, continued to prosper,, 
and her inhabitants to multiply. She was the refuge of the perse- 
cuted of all denominations, but particularly of those who suffered 
from the hands of her New England Sisters. She was their shelter 
— their ark of safety in the storm. Here were no hanging of Qua- 
kers, or witches — no scourge — no chain — no dungeon for a differ- 
ence of opinion. Still it was not, as yet, a place removed from all 
apprehension, or even from very great annoyance. It, for a season, 
seemed but as a raft, — formed from the fragments of diverse wrecks, 
and tied together, for temporary security, — upon the bosom of a 
raging deep, and which, but for the utmost care and diligence, might, 
at any moment, be rent in pieces. 

But the struggles and trials, through which Rhode-Island passed,, 
with her sister Colonies, did but give additional strength to her own 
love of Liberty and Law ; and some notice of them belongs as truly 
to the history of her great idea, as the account which we are giving 
of its most important developments. In these struggles, whether car- 
ried on at the Court of the Stuarts, in the camp of Cromwell, or here, 
in these Western wilds, it might be shown that she still baffled her 



24 

adversaries, and triumphed alike over their diplomacy abroad, and 
their menaces and violence at home. I shall confine my remarks to 
the latter, and name some few prominent facts. They will afford a 
melancholy interest, but without, I trust, awakening any unkind feel- 
ings between the Sisters, as they now are. It will serve to mark the 
distinctive character of our State, and to confirm her identity. This 
is an important object to a State of such small territorial extent, and 
of such a limited and fluctuating population. 

Here, then, was Rhode-Island in the midst of the three great Col- 
onies, Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut — all bitterly hos- 
tile to the heretic — all anxious to rid themselves of her presence, 
and all regarding her as their natural and legitimate prey. And 
they, accordingly, fell upon her, like three wolves upon the same 
lamb ; and had not God been her shepherd, they must have torn her 
in pieces. Plymouth claimed the island of Rhode-Island, Connec- 
ticut, the Narragansett country, and Massachusetts, claimed Provi- 
dence and Warwick. They would not have left the poor heretics a 
single rod of ground, on which to rest the soles of their feet, or to bury 
their dead. Connecticut, repeatedly, asserted her claims to the Nar- 
ragansett country ; appointed officers at Wickford and other places ; 
and often resorted to violence for the enforcement of her laws. Ply- 
mouth was ever a more quiet and tolerant Colony than either Massa- 
chusetts or Connecticut. She, indeed, insisted on her claims to the 
island of Rhode-Island, with such earnestness, that Mrs. Hutchinson, 
a woman of remarkable intellectual endowments, and the kindest 
sympathies, apprehensive that she might again fall under the juris- 
diction of Church and State, fled, with a number of her friends, to 
Long Island, where they were massacred by the Indians. Plymouth, 
however, never resorted to force. Her pretence to Shawomet she 
transferred, or yielded to Massachusetts, rather than attempt to en- 
force the claim herself. But Massachusetts rested not herself, and 
gave Rhode-Island no rest. Her claims to jurisdiction over Provi- 
dence and Warwick, on various pretences, were unremitted. During 
the village quarrels in Providence, several of its citizens applied to 
Massachusetts for protection ; and she induced them, by some writing 
of theirs, to pretend to put themselves and their lands under her 
jurisdiction ; and, on this pretence, she actually assumed to exercise 
her authority, and to enforce her laws, here, in the town of Provi- 
dence. Thus there were, here in the same municipality, two distinct 
codes of laws, brought to operate on lie same persons, and property ; 



25 

and this state of things was effected, according to Winthrop, with 
the intent of bringing Rhode-Island into subjection, either to Mas- 
sachusetts or Plymouth. You may easily conceive the confusion into 
which things were thrown, by this atrocious interference in the con- 
cerns of this little community. Gorton, Avho was then at Providence, 
thought that it had a particular signification for him ; and he, and a 
few of his associates, left Providence, and settled at Shawomet, after- 
wards called Warwick. There he purchased a tract of land of Mean- 
tinomy, the chief warrior sachem of the Narragansetts, and built 
and planted. But Massachusetts did not allow him to escape so. 
She assumed the claims of Plymouth, and procured from her an assign- 
ment or concession of her pretended jurisdiction over Shawomet. 
After this, two of Meantinomy's under sachems, of that place, sub- 
mitted themselves and lands to her jurisdiction ; and then, three or 
four of the English inhabitants, who had made purchases of these sach- 
ems, imitating the example of a few at Providence, feigned to put them- 
selves and property under her protection. Thus trebly fortified with 
pretences, Massachusetts entered the settlement, at Warwick, with 
an armed force of forty men, accompanied by many of her Indian 
subjects ; seized Gorton, and his friends, and carried them prisoners to 
Boston. There they were tried for blasphemy, and for " enmity to 
all civil authority among the people of God ;" and were sentenced to 
imprisonment in irons, during the pleasure of the Court — Gorton 
himself narrowly escaping sentence of death. This imprisonment 
was continued through the winter ; and they were then discharged, on 
condition, that, if, after fourteen days, they were found within Mas- 
sachusetts, Providence, or Shawomet, (the place of their homes,) 
they should suffer death. These proceedings, far from inducing the 
people of Rhode-Island to renounce their idea of Liberty and Law, 
did but strengthen their attachment to it. But the government of the 
entire Colony was soon called upon to defend its peculiar principles 
by direct action. 

During the year 1656, a number of the people called Quakers 
(more properly Friends,) arrived in Boston, and began to preach and 
practice their doctrines. No experience had yet been sufficient to 
teach Massachusetts or her confederates the folly of interfering 
between God and conscience ; and she began to fine, imprison, 
banish, whip, and hang the Quakers. But these people could find, 
and did find, a place of refuge in Rhode-Island ; whence they occa- 
sionally issued forth, as the Spirit prompted, into the neighboring 
4 



26 

Colonies, and startled them with revelations from above. Whereupon 
the Commissioners ox the United Colonies of New-England addressed 
a letter to . the President of this place of refuge — the Plantations 
] iere — anc l urged him to send away such Quakers as were then in 
the Colony, and to prohibit them from entering it. With this request, 
our government promptly refused to comply ; alleging their princi- 
ple of soul-liberty as the ground of their refusal. And they went 
even further — apprehensive that their adversaries might attempt, 
in England, where this sect was particularly obnoxious, to effect in- 
directly, what they could not directly accomplish here, they charged 
John Clarke, their agent at Westminster, to have an eye and ear 
open to their doings and sayings ; and if occasion were, to plead the 
cause of Rhode-Island in such sort, as that they " might not be com- 
pelled to exercise any civil power over men's consciences, so long as 
human orders, in point of civility, were not corrupted and violated." 
Indeed, the love of their peculiar idea of government seems to have 
grown with the trials through which it passed, and strengthened with its 
growth. And what will prove that this love had become one and 
identical with the spirit of this people, and their peculiar idea 
dearer than life itself, are the facts to which I will now call your 
attention. 

The first settlers at Providence and Warwick, were, at the com- 
mencement of their settlements, on the most friendly terms with their 
Indian neighbors. The Wampanoags, once a powerful people, though 
now considerably reduced, were on one side ; and the Narragan- 
setts, who, it is said, could number four or five thousand warriors, 
were on the other. A formidable array of savage strength this ! 
and indeed, at that time, the Red Man may be said to have held all 
Rhode-Island's blood in the palm of his hand, the slightest agitation of 
which would have consigned it to the dust. Roger Williams, sensible 
of the perils of his position, early " made a league of friendly neigh- 
borhood with all the sachems round about." But this league with 
savages was necessarily very precarious. They were all, alike jeal- 
ous of the Whites ; and, if any one provoked a war, it would be, of 
necessity, an indiscriminate war of extermination — race against 
race — and Rhode-Island would be the earliest victim. Now the 
Indians were at war among themselves ; and the United Colonies 
knew how to play off one hostile body against another for their own 
advantage ; and they appear to have done so with little regard, to 
say the least, to the critical position of the heretic Colony. Indeed, 



27 

it so happens that its particular Indian friends were the particular ob- 
jects of their unremitted hostility. Meantinomy and the Narragansetts, 
generally, were (as has been said,) on the most friendly terms with 
Williams and Gorton, Providence and Warwick. They cherished and 
fostered those infant settlements, as savages best could ; and it was 
against this chieftain and his people, that the United Colonies chose 
to excite Uncas and the Mohegans. Frequent strifes and, ultimately 
war and battle and slaughter were the consequences. Meantinomy 
was taken prisoner, and Uncas was advised by the United Colonies 
to put him to death. Acting on this advice, Uncas murdered his 
prisoner. The whole Narragansett people were, thereupon, deeply 
agitated — hostilities were frequently threatened ; nor did the mem- 
ory of this atrocious deed die out of the Narragansett mind, ere the 
Wampanoags rose in arms, and the whole body of Indians raised the 
tomahawk against the Whites, without discrimination. Now in 1643, 
previous to the death of Meantinomy, the four New-England Colonies, 
Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven, formed a 
confederation for their better security against Indian hostilities. This 
confederation was, indeed, a castle of safety to them, but not to 
Rhode-Island. She was obliged to stand out exposed to every peril. 
Between the death of Meantinomy, and the outbreak of Philip's war, 
again and again, did the fearful cloud of Indian hostility darken the 
land, and again and again, did Rhode-Island apply for admission into 
this confederation, and was refused. Refused ? No ; not absolutely. 
If she would renounce her idea of government, and come in under 
the Church and State combination, then, indeed, they would take 
her under their protection ; but until she did, she must stand out 
exposed to all the horrors of Indian war. Rather than accept such 
conditions, she chose the exposure. She stood out ready to brave 
the terrors of Indian ferocity — the midnight conflagration, and the 
indiscriminate butcheries of the tomahawk and scalping knife. Did 
she not love her Idea ? Was it not to her dearer than life ? Did she 
not feel it to be one and identical with herself, and that to renounce 
it, would be to commit treason against the Most High, and to ter- 
minate her own existence ? 

By this, her unconquerable love of her own glorious principles, 
she proved herself worthy of the Charter of 1663. Than that Char- 
ter, no greater boon was ever conferred by mother Country on Colony, 
since time began. No grant ever more completely expressed the Idea 
of a People. It, at once, guarantied our ancestors' soul -liberty, and 



28 

granted a law-making power, limited only by the desire of their 
Anglo-Saxon minds. It gave them the choice of every officer, from the 
Commander-in-Chief clown to the humblest official. It gave to the State 
the power of peace and war. It made her a sovereignty under the 
protection, rather than the guardianship, of England's sovereign ; so 
that the moment that protection was withdrawn, she stood indepen- 
dent and alone, competent to fight her own battles, under her own 
shield. I shall say nothing more of the powers conferred by this 
Charter ; we have too recently put off, and hung on the castle walls, 
that Vulcanian panoply, still unscathed, glorious and brilliant with 
nearly two centuries' wear. We know what it was ; God bless its 
memory ! 

There are those who are weak enough to think that they degrade 
the State, by calling this Charter the grant of a profligate king. 
The fools ! As well might they think to degrade a man, by declar- 
ing that the garment which he wears was made by a profligate tailor. 
But those who are endowed with this high wisdom, have yet to 
learn something of the manner in which Divine Providence operates its 
results in the great humanity, and that even this Charter is not the 
work of mere man. They have yet to learn, that there exists, 
throughout the grand totality, one presiding and all-pervading 
Mind, which, ever as occasion requires, brings out one element of 
humanity in opposition to another — balances excess against excess, 
and makes the best and the worst, the highest and the lowest, of mor- 
tals, equally, the unconscious instruments of its great designs ; and 
thus moves man steadily onward, to a higher and higher sphere of 
duties and rights. Whence comes the tyrant's will, unless it be 
from himself? But whence come the instinct of self-preservation, 
and deathless hope and faith, and that feeling, which knows no mas- 
ter, for the heroic sufferer in virtue's cause ? They are all from the Di- 
vine Author of humanity ; and dwell alike in the beggar and the king. 

When Charles the Second heard the tale of Rhode-Island's woes — 
of the wrongs inflicted upon her by her giant Sisters — when he 
heard of the scantiness of her territory, of the smallness of her 
numbers — of the perils to which they had been exposed, and of 
those which they must still encounter, in these distant wilds, could 
he have been accounted subject to the common laws of humanity, 
had he refused her feebleness a single demand ? Was not this Divine 
Power his master ? — and did he not grant the Charter because he 
could not do otherwise than obey it ? Yes — save as an instrument, 



29 

neither Charles, nor Clarendon, nor Howard, nor other noble, gave 
that Charter. On the contrary, that very law of humanity which 
save Rhode-Island's idea of government ere Rhode-Island was a 
name, and after passing it from generation to generation, gave it first 
to take form here in an infant people — that very law now clad it in 
the panoply of the Charter, and bade it suddenly stand out in the 
midst of New-England's Colonies, like another Minerva flashed from 
the head of Jove. 

Well might the surrounding Colonies recoil from the splendid 
vision, and still look on in wonderment at its strange apparition. But 
be ye not too fearfully astonished, ye simple ones ! There is no 
witchcraft here. It is but an ordinary prodigy of that " Wonder- 
working Providence " of which ye have spoken so much, and know 
so little. John Clarke, our agent at Westminster, has not been deal- 
ing with the wicked one — he has simply performed his duty as a 
part of the organization of the great humanity, and that, operating 
under the laws of its Divine Author, has accomplished this grand 
result. 

Here, then, was Rhode-Island in the midst of them — after all, 
something more than the peer of her Sisters. Her form has still the 
contour and softness of youth, and something more than a century of 
growth and discipline must roll away, ere the heart of the young 
sovereignty shall beat high in the maturity of its vigor, and her bone 
become hardened, and her muscles strung, to execute the purposes 
of her unconquerable will — and then — she shall march! — Yes, 
she shall march ! — and her banner shall stream daringly over 
Ocean's wave, and be rent in shreds on many a battle-field. 

But there is some one who thinks, or says to himself: "This is 
extravagant language for Rhode-Island — a little State." My indul- 
gent hearer, whoever you may be, do you know what that word little 
means, when thus applied to a social power — to an integral part of 
the grand social and moral organization of the race ? Do you think 
that the greatness of a State is to be measured by the league or the 
mile ? or that it is to be determined even by the figures of the cen- 
sus ? Are you really in the habit of estimating moral and intellect- 
ual greatness by the ton and the cord ? Do you weigh ideas in a 
balance, or measure thoughts by the bushel ? If you do, and your 
method be the true one, you must be decidedly right, and Rhode- 
Island is " a little State." But if the intellectual and moral be above 
the material and physical, and if that State be great, which actualizes 



30 

a great central truth or idea — one congenial to the whole nature of 
man — one that must develope itself in a manner consistent with the 
order of Divine Providence, the great course of events, and leave 
everlasting results in humanity — then Rhode-Island is not a little 
State, but one of such vast power as shall leave an ever-enduring 
impression on mankind. Give but the transcendent Mind — the great 
Idea, actualized — and whether it appear in an individual of the 
humblest physical conformation, or in the organization of a State of 
the smallest territorial extent, and the most limited population, it 
shall tend to raise all mankind up to its own standard, and to assimi 
late men and nations to itself. The principle of the hydrostatic bal- 
ance has its reality in the mass of humanity, as well as in Ocean's 
flood ; and give but the great fundamental Idea, brought out and 
embodied in the ever-enduring form of a State, and it shall act 
through that form, from generation to generation, on the elements 
beneath it, until it raise the enormous mass up to its own exalted 
level. 

This, all history proves. The States which have produced the 
greatest effect on mankind, are not those which are of the greatest 
material dimensions ; but, on the contrary, they are States which, 
though of small territorial extent, and often of very limited popula- 
tion, have actualized great fundamental truths or ideas. Take Athens, 
for example ; with a ruling population of about twenty thousand, 
and with a territorial domain of about the extent of our own State, 
what a dominion did she hold, and holds she still, over the rising 
and risen civilizations of the earth ! Barbarism took light from her 
lamp ; infant Rome organized herself upon the basis of her laws ; 
and surrounding nations were educated at her schools. Her ruling 
idea was given by the aesthetic element of the mind — strong in the 
love of the beautiful — and she carried this grand idea into all 
her social institutions — her religion, her philosophy, her science, 
her art, and into the athletic ' discipline of her youth. It reflected 
itself from the physiognomy and physical conformation of her people ; 
from the statuary of her temples, and from her unnumbered monu- 
mental structures. She established an empire of her own, which 
shall out-last the pyramids — which shall be as enduring and as broad 
as human civilization. She still teaches by her example, and rules 
in the truth of her precepts. 

Take ancient Judea — a State of small domain, and an outcast 
among the civilizations of old. The fundamental idea, or great truth, 



31 

upon which her government was based, and which she carried into 
all her institutions and sacred literature, was the Idea of the Unity 
of the Divine. What an influence has this single idea, as derived 
from her, had upon all mankind ! You may trace its influence, 
through history, from her fall to the present day. It has brought 
down with it, to all Christian, to all Mahometan nations, a knowledge 
of her institutions, and the influence of her laws ; and, regarding 
Christianity merely in a secular point of view, as necessarily spring- 
ing from her in the order of Divine Providence, what a power does 
she now exert throughout all Christendom ! We can put our eye on 
nothing to which she has not given modification and form. She lives 
in our laws and institutions — the very current of thought now pass- 
ing through our minds, and every hallowed sentiment by which we 
are now moved, may be traced back to the fundamental truth on 
which her legislator based that little State. 

To say nothing of Tyre, or Carthage, let us take Rome — a single 
municipality, that was called, by the state of the world, to propagate 
her own Idea of Order and Law, among the barbarous nations of the 
earth. Rome and the Roman Empire date their origin from the 
organization of the fugitives and outlaws, that were gathered within 
the narrow compass of the trench struck out by the hands of Romu- 
lus. Within this small space, the roots of an empire, such as the 
world had never before, and has never since, seen, were planted ; and 
thence they shot forth, assimilating to themselves everything that 
they touched. Rome went forth in her legion, and did but repeat, 
on the barbarism of the earth, her own great Idea of Order and Law. 
She everywhere established her distinct municipal order — assimilated 
diverse rude nations to her own civilization, and thus enstamped an 
everlasting image of herself on the race. 

I might name many other Republics, of very limited territorial 
extent and population, but which actualized ideas that transcended 
the ordinary standard of their age, which have performed a noble 
part in History, and left an abiding impress on mankind — I might 
name the small Italian Republics of modern times, and particularly 
Venice — that Venice, who, with no boast of territorial extent, built 
her domain in the sea — drove down her piles in the Adriatic, and 
enthroned herself thereon as Ocean's queen. But I will not consume 
your time ; enough has been said to shovv that we must not estimate 
the capacity and destiny of States by the extent of their territory, 
or the figures of their census — these are but contingent results, 



32 

which may, or may not, justify claims to the honor and gratitude of 
mankind. But, on the contrary, would you truly determine the 
genius and destiny of a State, ascertain what part — what function 
in the grand organic order of humanity, is hers — what that princi- 
ple is which has given her being, informed her with its own life, and 
actualized itself in her social and political organization ; and, if that 
principle gives a contingent and secondary idea — one inferior to 
the general mind of the age in which it is called to act a part, such 
a State, however large its territory or population, cannot be great — 
it will ever be little, and will become less and less, until it die, and 
pass out of the system. The order of Divine Providence, the course 
of events, and the progress of the race, are against it. On the 
other hand, if that principle give a great fundamental idea or truth — 
one congenial to the immutable laws of the whole social humanity — 
one germinating from the inmost soul of man, and transcending 
the general mind of the age in which it is to take form — such a 
State cannot be little ; however small its beginnings, its destiny is to 
act a high part in the grand course of events, and to become greater 
and greater in the worlds both of matter and mind, until, in the 
fulness of time, it has reflected its image entire, into the bosom of 
every civilized nation on earth. 

Such was Rhode-Island's Idea, and such was Rhode-Island's desti- 
ny, (yet to be fulfilled,) the moment she took organization under the 
•Charter of 1663. 

Brevity requires that I should now pass from the history of the 
internal action of this idea, in order to take some notice of its exter- 
nal action, and of the exhibition it made of itself, in the grand 
theatre of the world. For this purpose, I shall inquire what part 
Rhode-Island acted in the sisterhood, at a memorable period in her 
and their history ; and we can, thereby, the better determine whether 
there be, or be not, that, in her conduct, which will give us confi- 
dence in these large promises and exalted hopes. 

We must suppose, then, that from the adoption of her charter, 
more than a century of growth and discipline has rolled away, and 
brought us to the verge of the Revolution. 

And where is Rhode-Island now ? — that young sovereignty, so 
royally armed in her Charter, that seemed like a goddess suddenly 
shot down among wondering mortals, from a celestial sphere. Where 
is she now ? There she stands — one of the banded sisterhood — 
among the foremost, if not the very foremost of the Thirteen. But 






S3 

on whom does she flash the lightnings of that well-burnished helmet 
and shield, and level that glittering lance with the aim of her yet 
more glittering eye ? It is on " the Mother Nation" — on Parent 
England ! What cause has she for this hostile attitude, and most 
unfilial ire ? Is not her Eden Isle still the resort of England's 
gentry ? and what favor has been denied to her ? Or what decision, 
on the numerous controversies between her and her sister Colonies, 
has indicated a single unkind feeling in Mother England's breast ? 
Why, then, does she now band with those Sisters, and raise the hostile 
lance against England's protecting arm ? Ah ! she has come on a 
great mission ; not sent by England, but by England's Lord ; and 
she is here, in obedience thereto, to perforin her part in a great 
movement of the progressive humanity. She felt her own Idea of 
Liberty and Law threatened in the wrongs inflicted on her Sisters ; 
and, oblivious of the past, she stands here, banded with them, in vin- 
dication of her Idea. She has, moreover, assimilated them to herself. 
She has conquered by her example. They have adopted, or are 
adopting, her own just Idea of Government ; and to defend it, has 
become the common duty of all. 

But let us come out of allegory, into plain, matter-of-fact history, 
that spurns all embellishment. Rhode-Island, according to her high 
promise, should take a foremost part in this great movement, both in 
counsel and in action ; and now, let us see whether she disappoints 
our expectations. 

Do not understand that I mean to give even a general historical 
outline of her services and sufferings: I propose merely to name 
some prominent facts. But in order that these should be duly appre- 
ciated, it is necessary to state, that Rhode-Island, at the commence- 
ment of our struggle with Great Britain, did not contain a population 
of more than fifty thousand, of which, probably, one-fifth part was 
on the islands of the bay and coast ; and these were in the occupation 
of the enemy, for nearly three years of the war ; — that the State 
Treasury was already exhausted, and largely in debt, by reason of 
the expenses incurred during the French war ; — that she was exten- 
sively engaged in commerce, to which her beautiful bay and harbors 
invited her enterprising people, at the same time that they exposed them 
to the depredations of a naval power. Now, under all these disad- 
Vcintages, in what was it that Rhode-Island was foremost ? Doubtless, 
each of the Thirteen may claim to be foremost in some things ; but I 
speak only of those first steps, which manifested great daring, or 
5 



84 

were followed by great results. In what great movements, then, 
bearing this impress, was she first ? * 

She was the first to direct her officers to disregard the Stamp Act, 
and to assure them indemnity for doing so. 

She was the first to recommend the permanent establishment of 
a Continental Congress, with a closer union among the Colonies. 

She was among the first to adopt the Articles of Confederation, 
and it may be added, the last to abandon them. 
She was the first to brave royalty in arms. 

Great Britain was not then here, as at Boston, with her land forces 
in the field, but with her marine — behind her wooden walls — on the 
flood ; and before the casting of the three hundred and forty-two 
chests of tea — the East India Company's property — into the harbor 
of Boston, and before the Battle of Lexington, men of Newport had 
sunk His Majesty's armed sloop Liberty ; and men of Providence — 
after receiving, and returning with effect, the first shots fired in the 
Revolution — sent up the Gaspee in flames. 

She was the first to enact and declare Independence. 
In May, preceding the declaration of the Fourth of July by the 
Continental Congress, the General Assembly of this State repealed 
the act more eifectually to secure allegiance to the King, and exacted 
an oath of allegiance to the State, and required that all judicial 
process should be in the name of the State, and no longer hi His 
Majesty's name ; whereby Rhode-Island, from that moment, became, 
and is at this day, the oldest sovereign and independent State in the 
Western World. 

She was the first to establish a naval armament of her own ; and 
here, on the waters of her own Narragansett, was discharged, from 
it, the first camion fired in the Revolution, at any part of His 
Majesty's navy. 

She was the first to recommend to Congress the establishment of 
a Continental Navy. The recommendation was favorably received, 
and measures were adopted to carry it into effect ; and when that 
navy was constructed, she gave to it its first Commodore, or Com- 
mander-in-chief — Esek Hopkins, of North Providence. She furnished 
three captains and seven lieutenants, they being more than three 
quarters of the commissioned officers for the four large ships, and, 
probably, the like proportion of officers for the four smaller craft. 

* See the Annals of Providence. 



35 

Under this command, the first Continental fleet — the germ of our 
present navy — consisting of eight sail, proceeded to New Providence, 
surprised that place, took the forts, made prisoners of the Governor 
and other distinguished persons, and seizing all the cannon and 
military stores found there, brought them safely into port, as a 
handsome contribution to the service of the American army. On 
our alliance with France, this armament gave place to the French 
navy. 

But this Mas not the only kind of naval warfare adopted. The 
harbors of our State swarmed with armed vessels. Our merchants 
constructed privateers, or armed ships already on hand, and our 
sailors manned them, and in spite of the utmost vigilance of the 
British cruisers, they escaped to the Ocean, and were wonderfully 
successful. British property, to an immense amount, was brought 
into port, by which the wants of the people and army were supplied ; 
thus producing a double eifect — invigorating their Country, and 
enervating her foe. A questionable mode of warfare this, it may be 
said ; and so it may be said, that every mode of warfare is equally 
questionable. Nothing but the direst necessity can, in any case, 
excuse war ; but our ancestors seem to have thought that, when once 
the war was commenced, the shortest way, to conquer peace, and 
secure their independence, was the best ; and believing that the 
sensorium of the enemy might be found in his purse, they struck at 
that, and not without tremendous effect. At any rate, in this busi- 
ness, it must be conceded, that Rhode-Island was foremost. In fact, 
this port, here at the head of the bay, so swarmed with this terrible 
species of insect war-craft, that the enemy called it " the Hornet's 
Nest."* 

But whilst she was thus engaged in carrying Avar over the Ocean, 
she was not behind her Sisters in carrying it over the land. She 
raised two regiments at the commencement of the war — twelve 
hundred regular troops — she furnished her quota to the Continental 
Line, throughout the war. In addition to these, from the sixteenth 
of December, '76, to the sixteenth of March, '80, she kept three 
State regiments on foot, enlisted for the State or Continental service, 
as occasion might require. They were received as a part of the 
Continental establishment, and one of them, at least, was in the Conti- 
nental service under Washington. 

* For this fact, I am indebted to the venerable Win. Wilkinson. 



36 

To characterize the Rhode-Island officers who served in that war, 
it will suffice to name a few of them. 

There was General Greene, second only to Washington ; perhaps 
his equal in the field. There were Hitchcock, and Varnum, distin- 
guished members of the bar, who did honor to the profession of arms. 
Hitchcock commanded a brigade, consisting of five regiments — two 
from Massachusetts, and three from Rhode-Island — at the battles of 
Trenton and Princeton ; and " for his signal gallantry received the 
special thanks of Washington, in front of the College at Princeton, 
and which he was requested to present to the brigade he had so ably 
commanded." * Varnum commanded a division of Washington's 
army on the Delaware ; which included within it, the garrisons of 
Fort Mifflin, and Fort Mercer or Red-Bank. There were, also, 
Col. Christopher Greene, Col. Jeremiah Olney, Col. Lippett — I 
merely give their names — Major Thayer, the true hero of Fort 
Mifflin ; Talbut, that amphibious Major, sometimes on the deep in 
some small craft, boarding his Majesty's galley, (the Pigot,) — some- 
times on land, driving at once into camp, three or four British 
soldiers, whom he, alone, had captured — many were his daring adven- 
tures and hair-breadth escapes — General Barton, the captor of 
Prescot, and Capt. Olney, the foremost in storming the first battery 
taken at Yorktown. Many others might be named ; but what a host 
of recollections rise in the mind, on the bare mention of these ! 

As to the services of our troops in the Continental line, it is 
sufficient to say that they were engaged in every great battle fought 
under Washington during the war ; and there are instances in which 
they sustained the whole shock of the enemy ; as at Springfield, and 
at Red-Bank, where twelve hundred Hessians were repulsed with 
great slaughter, by the five hundred Rhode-Island men there, under 
the command of Col. Greene. These, together with the State regi- 
ments, were with Sullivan in his expedition against the enemy at 
Newport, and were, it is believed, the rear guard of the retreating 
army. The battle on Quaker Hill has never been appropriately 
noticed in History. " It was the best fought action during the 
Revolutionary War." f I use the language of Lafayette. There 
it was, that this rear guard checked the pursuing forces of Britain, 



* See the letter of Mr, J, Howland, the venerable President of the Rhode-Island Histor- 
ical Society, as quoted by Mr. Updike, in his " Memoirs of the Rhode-Island Bar," p. 148. 
t Annals of Providence, p. 256. 



and sustained an orderly retreat ; there it was, that our black regi- 
ment, with their cocked hats, and black plumes tipped with white, 
moving with charged bayonets as a single man, twice or thrice 
rushed on the banded force of British and Hessians, and as often 
drove them from the ground. * The estimation in which the Rhode- 
Island regiments were held, both by the Commander-in-chief, and the 
Continental Army, may be shown by a short conversation between 
Washington and Col. Olney. There was some disturbance in the 
Rhode-Island line, and Washington, riding up to Olney's quarters, 
said, in a state of excitement not usual for him, " Col. Olney ! what 
means this continued disturbance among the Rhode-Island troops ? — 
they give me more trouble than all the rest of the army." " I am 
sorry for it," said Olney, composedly. " But, General, that is just 
what the enemy say of them." A smile lit up the face of Washington, 
and the cloud passed from his brow. The freedom of this reply 
could have been warranted by nothing, but the known estimation in 
which the Rhode-Island troops were held, both by Washington, and 
his army. 

For nearly three years, during the time that Rhode-Island was 
making these efforts, the territory occupied by one-fifth part of her 
inhabitants, Avas, as I have said, in possession of the enemy, and 
one-half of the remaining portion of her people may be said to have 
slept within range of his naval cannon. The shores were guarded ; 
artillery companies were stationed in every town bordering on the 
bay ; the militia were constantly either under arms to repel assaults, 
or ready at a moment's warning, for that purpose ; and in Sullivan's 
expedition, they were called out in mass. Such were the trials 
through which she passed, and such the efforts which she made, that 
on the return of peace, both State and people were utterly bankrupt. 
All the property within the State, both real and personal, would not 
have paid the debts of either. The subsequent laws, making paper 
money a tender, were, in fact, bankrupt acts. Massachusetts, by 
not adopting this course, forced the oppressed debtors into a resist- 
ance of the execution of her laws, and finally into rebellion and civil 
war. I say not which was the better course. It was, in fact, a 
choice between great and unavoidable evils ; but the course of each 
State was perfectly characteristic. Rhode-Island dissolved the 
contract, and saved the debtor ; Massachusetts saved the contract, 

* Tradition. 



88 

and ruined the debtor. In Rhode-Island, Mercy triumphed over 
Justice ; in Massachusetts, Justice triumphed over Mercy. 

Such was the conduct of Rhode-Island, that young sovereignty, 
when called upon to act out of herself, and upon the world around 
her. And has she fallen, in anything, short of the high promise 
given by her fundamental Idea ? Have our expectations been in any 
degree disappointed ? Is she not, thus far, first among the foremost, 
in the great cause of Liberty and LaAv. In this struggle, she has 
acted under the liberty element of her Idea, and it has triumphed 
over illegal force. 

But she is now called to another trial, in which the Law element, 
by force of circumstances, is destined to predominate. She is called 
to adopt a new constitution, prepared by the Sisterhood for themselves 
and her ; and she shrinks from it, as repugnant to her Idea of Govern- 
ment. She had been the first to propose the confederation — she 
had been among the first to adopt its articles, and she was now to be 
the last to abandon them. She had ever felt and acted as a 
sovereignty, even under England ; and every freeman in the State 
felt her sovereignty and glory to be his own. Llis own individuality 

— his own conscious being was identified with her Idea, and he 
lived, moved, and breathed, as if he were one and identical with her, 
or she one and identical with him. Under the old confederation, 
this sovereignty would have been continued, and Avith it, the same 
free individuality — the same glorious conceptions of Liberty and 
Law that had come doAvn from of old. But under the neAV Consti- 
tution — " through Avhat neAV scenes and changes must she pass — 
through Avhat variety of untried being," under constraint and 
limitation to Avhich she had hitherto been a stranger — exposed 
perchance to the annoyance of a neAV brood of States, or States, at 
least, that shared not in her sympathies, and Avhich might become 
hostile for imputed political, if not religious heresies — she paused 

— she hesitated.' — If her Sisters, with something of their Church 
and State Ideas still clinging to them, and Avith their royal Governors 
just cast off — could put on this straight jacket — Avhy let them do 
it — it might be natural enough for them — but she Avould hold to 
the old Confederation Avhilst she could — she could use her arms and 
her hands, under that ; but under this, theyAvould be tied doAvn; and 
she must pass her helmet and shield and lance into other hands, and 
trust them for the defence of her oavu glorious Idea — she determined 
to cling to the confederation — and ayIio can blame her ? I do not 



— and she did cling to it, until she stood alone, and was obliged to 
abandon it. 

If Rhode-Island lost something of the freedom of her sovereignty, 
by the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it must be 
admitted that she gained much, by the new position into which she 
was brought with her Sister States. She, in fact, acquired a new 
stand-point, and vantage ground, from which the influence of her 
Idea of Government, and, of her enterprising and inventive genius 
has been transmitted, and is continually passing, into every portion 
of the Union. The Constitution of the United States, itself, had 
adopted her own original Idea — indeed, without it, as I have said, it 
could not have been established ; and whatever remnant there was 
of old Church and State Ideas, has, under its influence, long since 
passed" away. In the Constitution and Government of the Union, 
her own conceptions of Liberty and Law, have been conspicuously 
exemplified to the nations of the earth ; and have produced, and are 
still producing, on them their legitimate and necessary effects. 

From this new vantage ground, she has made her enterprising and 
original genius more sensibly felt by all. Having cast aside her 
shield and her lance, Minerva-like, she turned to the spindle and the 
loom. Without abandoning Agriculture or Commerce, she gave her 
attention to the Manufacturing Arts. The first cotton, spun by water, 
in the United States, was spun in North Providence. The first 
calico, printed in America, was printed in East Greenwich. It was 
from these beginnings, that the cotton manufacturing business of this 
country sprung, and soon came to give a most important direction to 
the legislation and policy of the Union. It was in 1816, that the 
manufacturing interest, chiefly of this State, presented to Congress 
the great question of protection to American industry, in the most 
effective form. And from that time to the present, it has been a 
question upon which the policy of the Government has turned, and, 
in reference to which, administrations have been established and 
displaced, as this or that party prevailed. 

But she has given occasion to a question more important still — a 
question touching her own original conception of regulated liberty — 
a question, however, which she settled for herself, by direct legisla- 
tive enactment, and almost by judicial decision, nearly two centuries 
ago ; but which now comes back upon her, by reason of the new 
relations and immature influences into which she is brought. I allude 
to that question which has grown out of events too recent for a 



40 

particular discussion here, and at this time, hut which I mention, 
because it forms a necessary part of the History of her Idea of Gov- 
ernment. It is a question, which, when raised under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, it was well should be first raised and deci- 
ded here, in a State which has been so long accustomed to preserve 
a due equipoise between Liberty and Law ; and be, then, presented 
to those States, who are yet vernal in the enjoyment of that Liberty 
which has been so long her own. Upon their ultimate decision of 
this great question, may turn the destinies of this Nation. Yet if 
Rhode-Island continue true to her own just conceptions of govern- 
ment, Ave need not despair of the final re-organization, even of the 
elements of anarchy and misrule. By force of her own example, 
shall she restore them to order. The future is big with fates, in 
which she may be called to enact a higher part than any that has 
yet been hers. Let her gird herself for the coming crisis, whatever 
it may be. Let her recollect her glorious Past, and stand firm in 
her own transcendent Idea, and she shall, by that simple act, bring 
the social elements around her, even out of anarchy, into Order and 
Law. 

We have thus reviewed the history of Rhode-Island's Idea of 
Government — of its internal developement, and of its external 
action ; and I now ask you, fellow-citizens, all, whether there be not 
that in its history, which is well worthy of our admiration ; and that 
in it, which is still big with destinies glorious and honorable ? Shall 
the records which give this history still lie unknown and neglected in 
the cabinet of this Society, for the want of funds for their publica- 
tion ? Will you leave one respected citizen to stand alone in gener- 
ous contribution to this great cause ? — I ask ye, men and women of 
Rhode-Island ! — for all may share in the noble effort to rescue the 
history of an honored ancestry from oblivion — I ask ye, will you 
allow the world longer to remain in ignorance of their names, their 
virtues, their deeds, their labors, and their sufferings in the great 
cause of regulated liberty ? Aye, Avhat is tenfold worse, will you 
suffer your children to imbibe their knowledge of their forefathers, 
from the libellous accounts of them given by the Hubbards, the 
Mortons, the Mathers, and their copyists ? Will you allow their 
minds, in the germ of existence, t;> become contaminated with such ex- 
aggerations, and perversions of truth, and inspired with contempt for 
their progenitors, and for that State to which their forefathers' just 
conceptions of government gave birth ? Citizens ! — be ye native 



41 

or adopted, I invite ye to come out from all minor associations for the 
coercive developement of minor ideas, and adopt the one great idea of 
your State, which gives centre to them all, and, by hastening it onward 
to its natural developements, you shall realize your fondest hopes. 
L^t us form ourselves into one great association for the accomplishment 
of this end. Let the grand plan be, at once, struck out by a legis- 
lative enactment, making immediate, and providing for future appro- 
priations ; let the present generation begin this work, and let suc- 
ceeding ones, through all time, go on to fill up and perfect it. Let us 
begin, and let our posterity proceed, to construct a monumental 
history that shall, on every hill, and in every vale — consecrated by 
tradition to some memorable event, or to the memory of the worthy 
dead — reveal to our own eyes, to the eyes of our children, and to 
the admiration of the stranger, something of Rhode-Island's glorious 
Past. Let us forthwith begin, and let posterity go on, to publish 
a documentary History of the State — a History that needs but to be 
revealed, and truly known, in order to be honored and respected by 
every human being capable of appreciating heroic worth. Let a 
history be provided f r your schools, that shall teach childhood to love 
our institutions, and reverence the memory of its ancestry ; and let 
myth and legend conspire with history, truly to illustrate the charac- 
ter and genius of ages gone by, and make Rhode-Island, all one 
classic ground. Let a literary and scientific periodical be established, 
that shall breathe the true Rhode-Island spirit — defend her institu- 
tions, her character, the memory of her honored dead, from 
defamation, be it of the past or present time — and thus invite and 
concentrate the efforts of Rhode-Island talent and genius, wherever 
they may be found. Let us encourage and patronise our literary 
institutions of all kinds, from the common school, to the college — 
they are all equally necessary to make the Rhode-Island Mind what 
it must be, before it can fulfil its high destinies. Let this, or other 
more hopeful plan, be forthwith projected by legislative enactment ; 
and be held up to the public mind, for present and future execution, 
and we shall realize by anticipation, even in the present age, many 
of the effects of its final accomplishment. It will fix in the common 
mind of the State, an idea of its own perpetuity, and incite it to one 
continuous effort to realize its loftiest hopes. If Rhode-Island 
cannot live over great space, she can live over much time — past, 
present, and to come — and it is the peculiar duty of statesmen to 
keep this idea of her perpetuity constantly in the mind of all. 



42 

Legislators of Rhode-Island ! 

The State which you represent, is not an institution for a day, but 
one for all time. Generation after generation passes away, but the 
State endures. The same organic people still remains ; the places 
of those who pass off are filled by those who come ; and the same 
sovereignty still lives on and on. without end. Every particle of 
the human body is said to pass off out of the system, once in seven 
years ; yet the same organic form still continues here to act its part 
— to be rewarded for its good, and punished for its evil deeds. It is 
just so with that body which constitutes the State. The organized 
people continues ever the same. The individuals which compose it, 
are its ever-coming and ever-fleeting particles, animated within it 
for a time, and then passing off to be seen no more : but unlike our 
own frail structures, it is qualified to endure through all time, and, 
therefore, in all that is done, this idea of its perpetuity should be ever 
kept before it. A great object is accomplished, when once a people 
is fully impressed with this idea ; it almost secures the immortality 
of which you thus oblige it constantly to think. One great curse of 
all popular institutions has ever been, a resort to paltry, temporary 
expedients — to legislation that looks only to the day, or the petty 
requirements of the present. But once impress a people with the 
idea of its own perpetuity, and induce it to act thereon, and you 
change its character — you humanize it — - you make it a being " of 
large discourse, that looks before and after." Once ingraft this idea 
upon the minds of the people of this State, and they will live in it — 
they will love it. They have now a boundless fukrre before them, 
but " shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it." Vague and indefi- 
nite hopes they indeed cherish, but they cannot anticipate what is to 
be realized. Strike out, then, the grand plan for the future — give 
some distinctness to the object of the State's high aim — to the 
elevated stand, in distant ages, to which she aspires — and, even now, 
they shall live in that future, just as they already live in the past. 
They will enjoy it by anticipation, and cheerfully urge the State on 
to that high destiny, which the God of Man and Nature designed 
should be hers. 




!BY BA^A^l MIMH WMHiraAH, 



RECITED BEFORE THE RHODE-ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

OX THE EVENING 0? JANUARY 1J, 1847; 

PREVIOUS TO THE DELIVERY OF 

JUDGE DURFEE'S DISCOURSE. 




P E M 



Now, while the echoing cannon's roar 

Rocks our far frontal towers, 
And bugle blast and trumpet's blare 

Float o'er the " Land of Flowers ;" 
While our bold eagle spreads his wing 

No more in lofty pride, 
But sorrowing sinks, as if from Heaven 

The ensanguined field to hide ; 
Turn we from War's bewildering blaze, 

And Conquest's choral song, 
To the still voice of other days, 

Long heard, — forgotten long. 

Listen to his rich words, intoned 

To " songs of lofty cheer," 
Who, in the " howling wilderness," 

AVhen only God could hear, 
Breathed not of exile, nor of wrong, 

Through the long winter nights, 
But uttered, in exulting song, 

The soul's unchartered rights. 



Who oped the cell where Conscience sat 
Chained to her dungeon stone, 

And bade the nations own her laws, 
And tremble round her throne. 



Who sought the Oracles of God 

Within her veiled shrine, 
Nor asked the Monarch, nor the Priest, 

Her sacred laws to sign. 

The brave, high heart, that would not yield 

Its liberty of thought, 
Far o'er the melancholy main, 

Through bitter trials brought ; 
But, to a double exile doomed, 

By Faith's pure guidance led 
Through the dark labyrinth of life, 

Held fast her golden thread. 

Listen ! The music of his dream 

Perchance may linger still 
In the old familiar places 

Beneath the emerald hill. 
The wave-worn rock («) still breasts the storm 

On Seekonk's lonely side, 
Where the dusk natives hailed the bark 

That bore their gentle guide. 

The Spring that gushed, amid the wild, 

In music on his ear, 
Still pours its waters, undefiled, 

The fainting heart to cheer. 
But the fair Cove, that slept so calm 

Beneath o'ershadowing hills, 
And bore the Pilgrim's evening psalm 

Far up its flowery rills — 

The tide that parted to receive 

The strangers' light canoe, 
As if an angel's balmy wing 

Had swept its waters blue — 
When, to the healing of its wave, 

We come in pensive thought, 
Through all its pleasant borders 

A dreary change is wrought ! 



The fire-winged courser's breath has swept 

Across its cooling tide — 
Lo ! where he plants his iron heel, 

How fast the wave has dried ! (b) 
Unlike the fabled Pegasus, 

Whose proud hoof, where he trode 
Earth's flinty bosom, oped a fount 

"Whence living waters flowed. 

Or, turn we to the green hill's side ; 

There, withjthe spring-time showers, 
The white-thorn, o'er a nameless grave, (c) 

Rains its pale, silver flowers. 
Yet Memory lingers with the Past, 

Nor vainly seeks to trace 
His foot-prints on a rock, whence time 

Nor tempests can efface ; 

Whereon he planted, fast and deep, 

The roof-tree of a home 
Wide as the wings of Love may sweep, 

Free as her thoughts may roam ; 
Where, through all time, 'the saints may dwell, 

And from pure fountains draw 
That peace which passeth human thought, 

In Liberty and Law. 

When Heavenward, up the silver stair 

Of silence drawn, we tread 
The visioned mount that looks .beyond 

The Valley of the Dead, — 
Oh, may we gather to our hearts 

The deeds our fathers wrought, 
And feed the perfumed lamp of love 

In the cool air of thought. 
While Hope shall on her Anchor lean, 

May Memory fondly turn, 
To wreath the amaranth and the palm 

Around their funeral urn. 



NOTES TO THE POEM. 



(a) Backus gives a tradition, that Roger Williams, and his companions, went over from 
Seekonk, in a canoe ; and were saluted by the Indians, from a rock on the west side of 
Seekonk River, with the words, " What cheer ? " — that they sailed round, till they got 
to a pleasant spring, on the margin of the Cove, at the head of Providence River, where 
they landed, and where he lived to old age. 

(6) A great part of this beautiful Cove has recently been filled up, to furnish a 
location for a railroad depot. 

(c) No stone designates the grave of Roger Williams. 












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